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The Weekly Dig Newsletter

Below are current issues of The Weekly Dig Newsletter, from Jillian Varney, owner of the Small Family Farm. Stay up to date on what's happening on the farm!

Home Made Pizza Night!

March Twenty-Sixth, 2019

I'm always looking for fun ways to help our CSA members get creative and feel inspired in the kitchen. The last thing we want is for you to feel is overwhelmed by your huge box of vegetables and for you to want them to stop coming! We want you to want to cook. We want you to spend time at home, in your kitchen, whisteling while you cook with ease and confidence! So I wanted to share with you one of my favorite ways to use up some of those weird and unusual vegetables that might end up in your compsost pile if you don't find a way to use them. All vegetables are delicious when prepared properly (I hold this belief solemnly in my heart).

And you can't go wrong sneaking your caramelized fennel, swiss chard, kale, fresh tomato overload and even thinly sliced zucchinis on top of a home-made pizza crust and layered between your favorite tomato sauce and a pile of cheese. We have enough tomato sauce in our basement to make pizzas for an army for a week, so this is one ingredient I always have on hand. I also stay pretty stocked on an array of cheeses because we get high quality cheese from the Organic Valley Retail Stores which we frequently visit in La Farge and Cashton. And flour for a home-made pizza crust is a pantry staple. I also always have plenty of garlic and vegetables on hand since, well, I live on an organic vegetable farm. So making home-made pizza has become something I can do with very little creative energy. It is also a crowd pleaser because everyone loves pizza!

There is also no wrong way to top a pizza. I also make enough dough for two pizzas every time I make dough, so if someone in the family absolutely will not eat a certain vegetable, you can simply put that veggie on the 'other' pizza. Our family loves leftovers, so having an extra pizza in the fridge is a good thing. We put kale and chard and spinach and truly whatever is in season on our pizza. We recently made home-made taco pizza which helped inspire this newsletter. Instead of a red sauce you make a refried bean spread for the bottom. Have chips, romaine lettuce, olives, tomatoes, and taco sauce for the top and you have a really fun Friday night! Sometimes we have leftover chicken in the fridge from cooking a whole chicken and we have made thai chicken pizza with a thai peaut sauce on the bottom instead of a red-sauce. This pizza uses shredded carrots, bean sprouts if you have them (we've skipped those a lot since we rarely have them on hand) and maybe some sweet peppers, chopped peanuts and some cilantro. Oh, and when Grandma Jane comes over we even make an alfredo pizza on a Blue Moon with asparagus or broccoli or anything green that you love and want to hide on your pizza!

If you're really in a hurry and it has been a long day, you could pick up a store-bought crust to make the process even quicker. But I want to share with you my favorite pizza dough recipe by Ree Drummond that calls for oil. I think oil in a pizza crust helps it get crispy, which I love. I'm not a total pizza crust snob. I know some people have really strong feelings about it being thick or thin, but I'm happy with whatever. My crusts are usually on the thinner side. But I do love crispy on the bottom. One little tip that this recipe does not tell you to do is to sprinkle your pizza pan/stone with oil and corn flour, then roll your crust out on the pan/stone. The corn flour adds texture and it also helps let in a little air between the pan and the crust which helps it crisp up when baking.

OH! And if you're gluten free or trying to stay away from flour, you can make a home-made crust out of potato, cooked cauliflower, or another gluten-free flour/grain of your choice. I have patted out left-over mashed potatoes or grated left over baked potatoes on a pan before to be used as a pizza crust. It's more messy when it's time to serve, but it tastes good going down!

My Favorite Pizza Dough Recipe

A couple more fun and creative Pizza Recipes

My new favorite reason to LOVE CSA farming!

My top three favorite reasons to support a CSA farm are the lovely trio of FRESH, LOCAL and ORGANIC that dance together hand-in-hand so beautifully going round and round in a girl-like frolly. Hello Fresh and Blue Apron might be offering trendy recipes, customizable dinner boxes and at-your-door delivery, but they will never, ever be able to offer truly FRESH, local or organic produce.

As if there aren't enough reasons to support a CSA farm, I have a new favorite that hits closer and closer to home as the subjects of climate change and carbon sequestering continue to re-surface in our newsfeeds. The reason is this: CSA Farms use a lot less plastic.

The idea came to me as our family was traveling in California this winter visiting my sister. We behaved as a semi-normal American family for a couple weeks buying all of our fruits and vegetables from grocery stores that also had an organic produce section. Cabbages were wrapped in plastic, onions came in plastic mesh bags. Garlic came in plastic mesh bags. Lettuce of any and all kinds came in plastic bags and plastic boxes. Grapes, berries, apples, oranges, beans, peas, EVERYTHING came in a disposable plastic bag of some kind. It felt like a luxury of waste. And even the few items that we did buy that did not come in an actual plastic bag (like bananas and sweet peppers), they had plastic stickers and bar codes all over them. All this plastic and stickers and barcodes made my experience of buying vegetables feel very, well, plastic. Most of what we purchased was organic, but it didn't feel like a very organic experience to me.

On the frist Saturday that we were there my sister took us to a Farmer's Market in Ohai which was a really fun experience to be at Farmer's Market and finding local citrus, pears, berries, and vegetables. Fun for me to be on the other side of the table for once in the shoes of the buyer. While at market we splurged and took home wagon loads of fresh carrots, peas, kale, spinach, citrus, berries, eggs and more. We had a large crew to feed for two weeks, so it was very fun to shop local in California for week. All of the food we bought at farmer's market was plastic-free. There were no stickers, mesh bags or even plastic clamshells. The berries even came in cardboard berry containers the many buyers were dumping into their own containers and returning to the farm. The produce from the farmer's market was not only fresh, local and organic, it felt, looked and tasted completely different to me. It felt, looked and tasted real.

Buying your vegetables through a CSA farm is an experience like none other. The produce you receive in your box has a face and a story. Through the newsletters you receive from the farm, you sometimes even hear about the most recent rain that fell on your produce. You get to hear about what the weather was like while we were harvesting your produce. And through the intimate expereience of knowing your farm, you can even learn to pardon certain cosmetic imperfections because you know that we had pouding rains and you understood why the lettuce looked a little more tattered. You might feel a little less picky about the exacting standards you have learned to expect from your training at the grocery store experience.

Now while we will never be able to produce this volume of vegetables completly free of the use of plastic, we can at the very start become aware of this huge issue, concerned about how deeply addicted to plastic we are and try to become conservative with its use. Some of the produce we supply in our CSA boxes needs to be bagged in a plasic bag so we can weigh and evenly distribute it. Beans might fall through the holes of the boxes if not in a plastic bag. Carrots could become rubbery and peas and spinach would wilt in a heart-beat if not for the almightly plastic bag. While I am not proud of it, we must use plastic sometimes. But what I want to raise our awareness of is how CSA farms are different is this very wonderful way. The carbon footprint of the produce is drastically less (like thousands of miles less). The vegetables from your CSA farm are so fresh you can actually see, smell and feel it when you open your box. It's a wonderful and healthy experience that delights the senses. Finally, the rising concern of plastic use in the production and distribution of vegetables can be softened when you buy your veggies from a CSA farm. We recycle the wax boxes that the produce is delivered in as many times as we are able which is something almost no other kind of produce farm does.

A friend of the farm who is currnetly devoting much of her life focus and energy on creating solutions for plastic use created this website: http://www.viroquaplasticfree.org/

Week 20, 2018

October Seventeenth

With the final summer share delivery comes a bittersweet feeling. I feel thankful for the slower days ahead and the relief of the rigid harvest-pack-deliver-repeat routine. While I take comfort, contentment and security in our predictable summer schedule, the opportunity for rest and restoration is welcome. But with the end of a harvest season also means the absence of the summer bounty, our friends and community members stop coming out to the farm to work and more time spent hauling firewood and stoking fires on a quiet country landscape.

Fall can feel sad some days when the cold wind blows, the sun hides behind the thick clouds and the trees start to look like skeletons. And on the Fall days when the sun shines on shimmering yellow leaves as they magically float and fly around in the air, decorating our lawns and windshields, we somehow feel uplifted and energized and inspired. Luckily we know that all this falling and deteriorating is only temporary and Spring will come again.

But Fall also feels like a time to be Thankful. Endless and infinite reasons to be thankful. Those of us who are all connected to eachother through these little newsletters, these produce box deliveries, this small family farm. We can be thankful for one another. We can be thankful for the colorful, delicious and nutritious blessings we received each week. No matter how difficult the growing season was, we all experienced it together and that in itself is worth celebrating to me!

I feel thankful for you, as I always do on Week 20. My sprinklings of gratitude are seeded and buried in the previous newsletters of this season, but perhaps a more deliberate declaration is appropriate now. I feel thankful that you chose to spend some of your food dollars this summer with a local, organic, vegetable CSA farm. I feel thankful that you have the confidence and skills to cook with your surprise boxes of vegetables. I feel thankful that you appreciate the more rare and unusual vegetables that come in your boxes rather than discount them. And I feel thankful that you are part of this beautiful community effort of knowing your farmers and knowing your food. Thank you.

Because of all of the rain and moisture that we received this Fall, this has truly been one of the most difficult Fall growing seasons since we started our farm. Many of our usual Fall crops did not grow or turn out the way we were hoping. For many reasons, we feel like this was the most difficult year in terms of actual farming and crops. But this was most certainly not the most difficult year for our farm in other ways. Our CSA membership remains stable and strong. Our community support is higher than ever. And the financial stability of a CSA farm opposed to a 2-3 crop wholesale farm is what makes this style of farming feel sustainable and supported. Because of all of you, we feel like we can keep going.

After a little winter’s rest, your farmers will enter their 14th season running their little CSA farm. We will enter it hopeful and optimistic and energetic. In the meantime, Cheers! And Thank You!

“Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.” — Henry David Thoreau

Sooooo....What's in the Box????

Peppers- 4-5 peppers per member this week from the last pepper harvest. The peppers are still green because we had to take them off the plants before we got a hard frost. They are still perfectly edible, but not quite as fun as the colored peppers, I know! Green peppers make a great relish! We can hope for a better pepper year next season.

Sweet Dumpling- These are the cute little cream colored squash with green stripes shaped like a little bowl or ball. Sweet dumplings have a delightful, sweet flesh that comes in a festive shape, nice for making squash bowls or stuffed squash recipes!

Spaghetti Squash- These are the yellow squashes towards the bottom of your box. Spaghetti squash is all the rage in the gluten-free world. It makes a wonderful crust for a quiche, pizza, noodle substitute or any other creative use! Have fun!

Brussels Sprouts- It’s always fun to discover that this is how Brussels sprouts grow, on a stalk like this. This has been one of our worst Brussels sprouts years because of all of the rain. They have little black spots on the outer covering of each sprout. You’ll have to snap each sprout off the stalk and peel them back individually. Brussels sprouts are wonderful baked, steamed or even pan fried with butter and salt! Be careful not to over-cook them as this can result in a less desirable flavor.

Leek- A leek is in the same family as onion or scallions. Use in a soup to add the unique flavor of leeks or sautee them in ghee or coconut oil to sprinkle crispy, fried leek bits on top of your dish or soup! Yum! They are edible all the way up the stalk, even when they begin to turn green!

Broccoli- One or two broccoli per member this week. We harvested these on the smaller side since this was the final Summer Share delivery and we wanted you to get as many as we could, even if they were smaller.

Cauliflower- One or two cauliflower per member this week. We harvested these on the smaller side since this was the final Summer Share delivery and we wanted you to get as many as we could, even if they were smaller.

Fennel- A cute little bulb of fennel for everyone this week. Fennel adds such a nice flavor when shaved raw onto a salad or sautéed with onions.

Collards- Small bunches of collards, but still we wanted to give you what we had left for cooking greens. Collards, we learned this summer, are lovely boiled in broth and then fried in bacon grease and then served with bacon bits! They could also just be chopped, sautéed and added to your egg dishes or any other creative use!

Sweet Potatoes- 2 lbs of sweet potatoes per member this week. Did you know that some sweet potatoes can look a little funky? They come in all shapes and sizes! We did not wash these sweet potatoes because they get scuffed up from being washed when freshly dug. Don’t forget that the skins of your sweet potoates are edible! You can even cut them into French-fry form, toss them with coconut oil, and make home-made baked French fries (with the skins on!) They oxidize fast when cut up, so be prepared to cook them quickly after they have been cut raw.

Spinach- A modest giving of spinach per member this week. Just a .25lb bag. We had to brush the snow off of the spinach on Monday morning as we were picking it with frozen fingers. We didn’t want the final delivery of the season to go without spinach! With such a rainy, wet Fall, our usually abundant Fall Spinach didn’t quite fill out the way we liked this year. A more modest giving this time around!

Parsnips- .85 lbs of parsnips per member this week. Parsnips are such a lovely Fall root. We were able to get these dug and washed in a slight window last week using a 4x4 tractor. Parsnips make a wonderful addition to a Fall Soup, baked with those sweet potato fries, or even in a roasted root veggie dish.

Diakon Radish- These are the white, long radishes with their greens still attached. Diakons have a very smooth, not spicy, flavor compared to many other radishes. Usually our Fall Diakons are huge, but these were skinnier and smaller this year due to the unusually wet and cool fall we had.

Week 19, 2018

October Tenth

Rain makes mud. An impressive streak of rain has been falling on the farm these last few weeks. While we haven’t been getting too much rainfall at one time, we have been getting subsequient storms that make it so that after one storm passes, another is shortly behind. Very few days in the past weeks have been sunny or windy or dry.

While I do my very best to keep these newsletters cheery and positive, it gets hard at times like these. We have had several harvest days in the rain and mud where we simply must be out in it to harvest for CSA deliveries or to get the roots out of ground for the upcoming week’s box. Even when it stops raining, we have been out there in full rain gear trying to use the tractor and equipment to dig in small windows of opportunity. This last week we were digging potatoes with a pitchfork because we know it is time that they must come out of the ground or they will begin to rot, which we have not done for many years.

The packing shed is mud city. We come in from a harvest with a muddy truck, muddy workers and bins full of muddy vegetables. Washing takes a little extra longer than usual and even getting dressed and undressed in and out of rain gear takes up time. We are spraying mud off our boots, mud off the floor and mud off of the equipment we use. This has been one of the hardest Fall’s that we can remember farming in.

Now we’re down to just a month left before the season is officially over for us. There are still a lot of vegetables out there in the fields to harvest before old man Winter can come. We’re really, really, really hoping that the rains will stop soon that things can dry out and we can begin to harvest our Fall root crops for the year. A week of warmth, a little wind and sunshine would do your farmers a lot of good. Sunny and dry weather would lift our spirits out of the muck as well.

But if a farmer is a forever optimist. We’ll get though this Fall and winter will feel like a long night’s sleep. We will rest and restore and enter another season full of hope and enthusiasm. In the mean time, help us pray for the rains to END this fall! We still have a solid month’s worth of work to do!

Sooooo....What's in the Box????

Peppers- Nine peppers per member this week. Many of the peppers were green this week. We clear-cut the pepper plants last Friday because it was the night before the first frost of the season. Because of this we took many of the peppers off of the plants that were still green. They are still perfectly edible, but not quite as fun as the colored peppers, I know! Green peppers make a great relish!

Kabocha Squash- This is my personal favorite winter squash variety! Kabocha’s are a creamy, orange flesh with so much sweetness. To cook a winter squash, cut it in half lengthwise, discard the seeds, and bake it in the oven face down for about an hour or until it is cooked all the way through and the squash scoops out easily from the skin. Serve with plenty of butter!

Brussels Sprouts- It’s always fun to discover that this is how Brussels sprouts grow, on a stalk like this. This has been one of our worst Brussels sprouts years because of all of the rain. They have little black spots on the outer covering of each sprout. You’ll have to snap each sprout off the stalk and peel them back individually. Brussels sprouts are wonderful baked, steamed or even pan fried with butter and salt! Be careful not to over-cook them

Leek- A leek is in the same family as onion or scallions. Use in a soup to add the unique flavor of leeks!

Broccoli or Cauliflower or Romanesco- One broccoli or cauliflower per member this week.

Carrots- One pound of carrots per member this week. One crop that seems to be turning out fairly well for us this year is carrots. It’s a good thing too, because everyone loves them!

Leaf Lettuce- You may have received a red leaf, green leaf or romaine lettuce this week. The heads were very small again, but this is what we were able to get.

Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers x2- Hungarian Hot wax are amongst the most mild of hot peppers, but they may surprise you! Hungarian Hot Wax are usually found a lime-green color, but they also ripen orange to red. Many of them were smaller this week

Fennel- A cute little bulb of fennel for everyone this week. Fennel adds such a nice flavor when shaved raw onto a salad or sautéed with onions.

Sweet Potatoes- 2 lbs of sweet potatoes per member this week. Did you know that some sweet potatoes can look a little funky? They come in all shapes and sizes! We did not wash these sweet potatoes because they get scuffed up from being washed when freshly dug. Don’t forget that the skins of your sweet potoates are edible! You can even cut them into French-fry form, toss them with coconut oil, and make home-made baked French fries (with the skins on!)

Spinach- A modest giving of spinach per member this week. Just a .25lb bag. But the leaves were large and needed to be picked. Our Fall Spinach didn’t germinate quite the way we had hoped, so we didn’t have a much as we usually do. The leaves were quite tender from the first picking and they seemed a little abused from all of the pounding rain. Eat up your spinach soon, my thoughts are that this spinach won’t last long in the fridge.

Parsnips- .75 lbs of parsnips per member this week. Parsnips are such a lovely Fall root. We were able to get these dug and washed in a slight window last week using a 4x4 tractor. Parsnips make a wonderful addition to a Fall Soup, baked with those sweet potato fries, or even in a roasted root veggie dish.

Celeriac Root- Celery’s uglier, grumpier, and older brother. These are specially cultivated plants so that the roots of the plant grow large and not the stalks. In the same family as celery. We left their stalks and greens on them so you can cook with them. The stalks and leaves could be a nice addition to soups or broths. Take advantage of this unique, seasonal offering! Once the tops have been cut off, the celeriac root will keep for months in a plastic bag in the fridge. Celeriac root is wonderful boiled and mashed with potatoes to make a celeriac/potato mash. Celeriac is also nice when peeled, and then diced finely into a soup. Once you have cut into it, the flesh will oxidize and turn a brown-ish color. So we recommend using it up sooner rather than later once you cut into it.

Week 18, 2018

October Third

The best parts about being a CSA member are knowing that a percentage of your food dollars are still circulating locally, that you are eating fresh, local, organic and seasonal veggies every week and that you get amusing newsletters from the farm and invites to on-farm events that help enrich your connection to the place where your food is coming from. It’s a fun way to ‘force’ yourself to try new veggies, eat veggies you might otherwise not buy, or to incorporate more veggies into your diet than what you might tend to do.

But my personal favorite reason that you belong to a CSA farm (aside from the fact that you’re part of our CSA farm) is that you are encouraged to cook. I chuckle like Santa on Christmas morning to think of you opening your presents. I know that not everything in the box is something you’re ecstatic about, but it is the items that give you the greatest challenge that will get your wheels turning. The un-loved vegetables and less-familiar are the ones that send you to research, to step outside your comfort zone, and to keep you interested to try new things. How boring life would be if we could just have exactly what we wanted all of the time. How lovely it is that we and our vegetable selections are so varied and different!

I also love imagining you all in your kitchens with your cutting boards, knives and wonderfully messy kitchens. I love to be outdoors with the children doing chores or helping on the farm in the afternoons and I usually wait until the last possible moment to start on dinner. And when I do finally start on dinner, it’s usually crunch time to get it done. There are potoato peels, celery tops, onion and garlic peels and juicy watermelon seeds all over my space. Meanwhile the baby is splashing in the dog water and the older two have an argument over the colored pencils. The phone rings and then someone stops in to chat. But I am determined to get dinner on the table and for it to be loaded with vegetables and for everyone to be satisfied.

Poor farmer Adam comes in from the fields at the end of the day to either a ridiculous mess (if it was made-from-scratch night) or a fairly clean kitchen (if it was leftover night). But I am the sort of person who tends to give 110% towards everything I do and cheater meals like mac and cheese and spaghetti are reserved for true emergencies that happen rarely. A veggie-loaded meal is a high priority to me. It takes up loads of my time and creates huge messes, but I tell myself it is my creative outlet, I am keeping my family healthy and I’m keeping my home warm and smelling good!

My intent was not to toot my own horn for accomplishing the family meal (for sometimes it is by the skin of my teeth) but to congratulate you for doing the same, prioritizing it in your life and to share a story in how difficult I know it can be! Even if the home-cooked meal is a new concept to you in your house or if you’re feeling discouraged from all of these new vegetables (or if you’re feeling like there simply isn’t time), I urge you to keep it up! It gets easier! You’ll have to embrace the mess, learn to love it and know that it is an important part of keeping your family healthy and spending time together.

Sooooo....What's in the Box????

Peppers- Ten peppers per member this week. Many of the peppers were green this week. We clear-cut the pepper plants on Friday last week because it was the night before the first frost of the season. Because of this we took many of the peppers off of the plants that were still green. They are still perfectly edible, but not quite as fun as the colored peppers, I know! Green peppers make a great relish!

Butternut Squash- The beloved butternut! Butternuts are creamy and smooth and sweet, everything you want from a Fall Winter Squash! Cut them in half lengthwise, discard the seeds, and bake them in a dish with a little water at the bottom to prevent them from drying hard to the pan at 350 for about an hour. Once they are cooked, scoop the creamy, orange flesh out and use as you like!

Cabbage- You may have received a napa cabbage, savoy cabbage, green cabbage or red cabbage. Our Fall Cabbage plantings were more sparse than usual, so we had to take the big ones from each planting to get enough for this CSA giving.

Yellow Onion- A nice yellow onion for everyone this week!

Broccoli- One broccoli per member this week.

Carrots- One pound of carrots per member this week. One crop that seems to be turning out fairly well for us this year is carrots. It’s a good thing too, because everyone loves them!

Leaf Lettuce- You may have received a red leaf, green leaf or romaine lettuce this week.

Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers x3- Hungarian Hot wax are amongst the most mild of hot peppers, but they may surprise you! Hungarian Hot Wax are usually found a lime-green color, but they also ripen orange to red. These were in the little brown paper sac this week with your mini sweet peppers.

Mini sweet peppers- 6-7 minisweet peppers per member. These were in the little brown paper sack with your Hungarian hot wax peppers. They were likely red, yellow or orange and are sweet!

Thyme- Generous bunches of thyme this week. If you can’t use this much thyme in one week, thyme dries very nicely for storage! To dehydrate, un-bunch your thyme and lay it out flat on a dehydrator try and dry on low heat until crispy and dry. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you could dry it in your oven on the lowest heat setting (with the door cracked even so it doesn’t get too hot) until it is dry. Once dried, store in a mason jar with a tight lid. Flavor will be just as good as when it is fresh! Thyme is wonderful with meat dishes, incorporated into your fritattas, quiches or squash bakes. Some people even drink it as tea. Thyme is used medicinally to treat issues of the throat, mouth, intestines and bladder.

Red or Yellow Potatoes- 2.5 lbs of potatoes per member this week. You may have received either yellow or red potatoes.

Curly Green Kale- Possibly the final giving of Kale, we’ll see how the Fall goes here. Smaller bunches because the plants aren’t re-producing quite the way they were earlier in the season.

Garlic- One bulb of garlic per member this week.

Eggplant- A medium or 1-2 small eggplants per member this week. This is another crop that we had to clear the plants of before the first frost hit last Friday night.

Garlic- Keeps well on your counter for a month or two, but for long-term storage, we recommend keeping them in your fridge. We store garlic in the cooler at the farm.